Tribes: Solar projects tread on sacred Indian grounds

Apr. 24, 2011

Alfredo Acosta Figueroa of Blythe, founder of La Cuna de Aztlan Protection Circle, is concerned that many of the Native American archaeological sites near Blythe will be destroyed during the construction of planned solar projects. / Omar Ornelas, The Desert Sun

Alfredo Acosta Figueroa is founder of La Cuna de Aztlan Protection Circle, a nonprofit organization dedicated to protecting the Blythe Giant Intaglios — ground drawings of humans, animals and shapes also known as geoglyphs left by native peoples centuries ago — and other geoglyphs in the area. / Omar Ornelas, The Desert Sun

More

ADVERTISEMENT

From the front yard of his modest home in a quiet neighborhood in Blythe, Alfredo Acosta Figueroa turns his gaze to the northwest, to the Big and Little Maria and McCoy mountains rising out of flat desert.

“You can see the creation story all around in these mountains,” said Figueroa, 73.

The longtime Chicano activist and descendent of Chemehuevi and Yaqui Native American tribes unflinchingly finds himself at the center of a storm — a legal battle threatening to derail the state and federal governments' multi-billion-dollar solar energy development plan for the California desert.

Figueroa is part of La Cuna de Aztlan Protection Circle, a nonprofit organization dedicated to protecting the Blythe Giant Intaglios — ground drawings of humans, animals and shapes also known as geoglyphs left by native peoples centuries ago. They are created by removing darkened stones from the desert pavement and exposing the lighter ground beneath.

La Cuna in 2008 entered into a collaborative agreement with the federal Bureau of Land Management to help protect the geoglyphs and several hundred other sacred sites along the Colorado River from Needles to Yuma, Ariz.

Now La Cuna is suing the BLM and four solar projects — the Blythe, Ivanpah, Calico and Genesis projects in Riverside and San Bernardino counties.

La Cuna claims the federal and state governments and the solar companies failed to adequately consult with nearby Native American tribes about lands of cultural and historical significance to them that will be impacted by the projects, and failed to adequately assess the environmental impacts prior to their approval.

The nonprofit Californians for Renewable Energy is also a plaintiff in the case. The federal government and solar companies are disputing the lawsuit's claims.

Figueroa cites a California Energy Commission staff report from June on the Genesis solar project west of Blythe, which looked at cumulative impacts on cultural sites from past, present and likely future solar development.

(Page 2 of 5)

“This analysis estimates that more than 800 sites within the I-10 corridor, and 17,000 sites within the Southern California Desert Region, will potentially be destroyed,” the report stated. “Mitigation can reduce the impact of this destruction, but not to a less-than-significant level.”

“Their own people from the California Energy Commission say all of these sites are going to be destroyed,” Figueroa said. “And there's no way they can be mitigated — how can you mitigate something that's going to be destroyed?”

For Figueroa, the corridor of open desert and mountains north of Interstate 10 isn't just significant; it's sacred. He believes the local landscape is Aztlan, the mythical, ancestral home of indigenous people who went on to populate Mexico and Central America. That controversial position is not shared by most, but that doesn't deter Figueroa, who maintains centuries-old Mayan codices can be interpreted to back up his claim.

Walking along a hard, flat desertscape, Figueroa leads anyone who will listen to a series of geoglyphs, including a large one of Kokopelli, an iconic Native American symbol of a hunched over, flute-playing man in a feathered headdress.

BLM officials dispute the age of the geoglyph, noting that it doesn't appear in satellite images or aerial photos prior to 1994. But BrightSource Energy, the company developing the Blythe project, voluntarily moved the project footprint to avoid the site.

“None of the geoglyphs that Mr. Figueroa has pointed out are within the footprint of the project,” said BLM archaeologist Rolla Queen.

“The geoglyphs are the link that ties together one mountain to the other mountain,” he said. “That's why any solar power plant that they build there will affect all of these sacred sites. It will destroy these trails.

(Page 3 of 5)

“The desert don't mean nothing to the majority of these people. But to us, it means everything.”

Required consultation

Federal law not only requires the BLM to inform Native American tribes of projects on public lands that may in some way impact them, it requires government-to-government consultation.

“Tribal consultation is something we as an agency feel we do very well,” Queen said.

But one tribal leader disputed that.

“We don't think it's been adequate,” said Charles Wood, chairman of the Chemehuevi Tribe, located on the California side of Lake Havasu in San Bernardino County.

Wood said that while BLM officials have sought the tribe's input on projects, the all-at-once, fast-moving nature of desert solar development over the past two years has overwhelmed tribal members.

“Some of these projects have been put on the fast track, and we just don't have the staffs to review some of these things,” Wood said.

“Just trying to get through the massive amounts of information in the process has been overbearing, unless you have a full-time staff that can deal with thousands of pages of material. Because we're not looking at just one project, but maybe as many as 20 under consideration.”

Wood said Figueroa does not speak for or represent the Chemehuevi tribe.

“In general, we agree with Alfredo and his position,” Wood said. “We have a resolution in the tribe to protect the geoglyphs, both known and yet to be discovered.”

But the tribe disagrees with Figueroa's desire to stop the desert solar development altogether, Wood said.

“If the geoglyphs are taken out of the projects, if they are adequately fenced and protected, we feel like we've done what we were tasked to do,” he said.

Queen said BLM is required to follow federal laws in determining how to address an archaeological site.

“There may be a lot of archeological sites out there, and artifacts on the ground,” he said. “But our responsibility is to ultimately identify what's eligible for listing in the National Register of Historical Places.”

(Page 4 of 5)

Register listings are determined by highly legalistic criteria that include association with a person or event significant to U.S. history, or having a highly artistic, identifiable characteristic or style of a type or period.

“A piece of broken pot on the desert floor out there, it may be interesting, but it isn't the sort of thing we're going to manage as an historical property,” Queen said.

The BLM works to take into account the concerns of tribal members, he said.

“But when they say, ‘It's a pristine landscape; our people have roamed these hills for thousands of years,' we understand that,” Queen said, “but the law we have to deal with deals with historic places — things that are eligible for the National Register.”

That's often a frustration for tribes, said Dave Singleton, program analyst for southern California counties for the Native American Heritage Commission, a state agency charged with protecting tribal grave sites and cultural resources.

“Elders that have knowledge of those sites say, ‘What about sites that we feel are sacred? You're not considering them,'” he said.

Wood made an analogy with Catholics.

“I want to build a McDonald's in Vatican Square, and I'll mitigate and provide land to make up for the space I use,” he said.

“What part of the Vatican is sacred to you? Is it just the cathedral or is it the entire grounds? Now you start to understand the landscape concerns we have.”

Boma Johnson spent 25 years as an archaeologist and with the BLM studying Native American heritage along the Lower Colorado River. He's now an archaeology professor with Dixie State College in St. George, Utah.

Johnson said fast-tracking solar projects in the desert “is a total run-over of everything the Indian tribes have worked for.

“They have the right as a people to identify their sacred areas, both within their reservations and in their traditional areas.”

Judge: Tribe wasn't properly consulted

On one of the first chances a judge has had to evaluate the level of consultation between the BLM, solar developers and Native American tribes, U.S. District Judge Larry Alan Burns sided with the tribes.

(Page 5 of 5)

Burns on Dec. 15 granted a temporary injunction halting Tessera Solar's 709-megawatt Imperial Valley solar project, finding the plaintiff in the lawsuit, the Quechan Indian Tribe, “was not adequately consulted” on the project.

“Documentary evidence doesn't show BLM ever met with the Tribe's government until October 16, 2010, well after the project was approved,” Burns stated in his ruling.

“All available evidence tends to show BLM repeatedly said it would be glad to meet with the Tribe, but never did so.”

BLM's invitation to consult with the tribe “amounted to little more than a general request for the tribe to gather its own information about all sites within the area and disclose it at public meetings,” Burns added.

Robert Lukefahr, CEO of Tessera Solar, at the time expressed “deep disappointment” in the judge's ruling.

“This ruling sets back our ability to provide clean, renewable power to Southern California and delays our ability to bring jobs and economic development,” he said.

In February, Tessera sold its Imperial Valley project to AES Solar.

The preliminary ruling reverberated throughout the desert solar development movement. Evelyn Chandler, an archaeologist with ECORP Consulting working on the Desert Sunlight solar project near Desert Center, said developer First Solar has scheduled additional meetings and site visits with tribal members to help ensure the project's level of tribal consultation could pass legal scrutiny.

“We're trying to reach out to where the tribes are and go to them; not necessarily wait for them to come to us,” she said.

Sharing the sacrifice

Wood emphasized that his tribe is pro-solar development.

“The whole issue of green, renewable energy is in line with the thinking of most tribes about the environment,” he said.

“We wish some of these companies would have come to the tribes first. It would have brought an economy and jobs and benefits that are desperately needed.”

Parker Dam in 1939 created Lake Havasu, but flooded 7,000 acres of Chemehuevi land, including its prime farmland and cemeteries, Wood said. Developing an economy over the decades since has been painstaking for the tribe of just over 1,000 members, he said.

“The issue with desert solar is, what will be best for the larger society?” he said. “We have very specific concerns, but are we willing to sacrifice or compromise those for the greater good of society?

“We've always been subject to sacrifice for the greater good. It's something that's a part of our being.”